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The Golden Baobab Prize, an initiative that inspires, discovers and rewards African writing talent in the field of children’s literature, has officially become the most competitive children’s literary prize on the continent this year.

According to reports, by the time the curtain closed on the submissions on 24 June 24, 2012, the Prize had been sent over 450 entries from a total of 279 entrants.

These numbers mean that the volume of stories submitted to The Golden Baobab Prize in 2012 almost tripled from those recorded in 2011.

The high number of applicants for this year’s prize brings the total number of stories collected by Golden Baobab to 850 in only four years and effectively establishes 2012 as a game-changing year for one of Africa’s most important literary awards.

Golden Baobab Prize Co-Founder and Executive Director, Deborah Ahenkorah expressed her satisfaction in a statement which said, “It’s incredibly inspiring to see so many African writers from all over the world rallying around the cause of The Golden Baobab.”

She added that, “They believe, like us, that young people all over the continent deserve a consistent supply of quality literature. The next stop now is to get all these amazing stories into the hands of readers.”

Due to this, Deborah Ahenkorah disclosed, they are “looking to create partnerships to make this happen. I’m really excited to watch and see what The Golden Baobab Prize will do for the African children’s literature landscape.”

Golden Baobab has already had three of their winning stories published as children’s books, which have been distributed in 15 countries.

Prize entries, the statement said, came from Africans from North Africa, East and Central Africa, Southern Africa and West Africa.

Stories were received from writers holding citizenship in 19 different African countries, namely Angola, Botswana, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Morocco, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Nigeria produced the largest number of entries. The entries came from a range of writers of all ages; the youngest entrant was aged 11 and the oldest aged 71.

Winners of this year’s prize will be announced in the first week of November 2012.

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